Finally, there hadn’t even been very much to do. Tom turned to watching daytime television with Chet, while Carolyn worked at her job in Geneva; Ken, predictably, spent as much time with Judy as he could. Now that they were no longer commuting to Wrightsville, Judy was again getting her workouts at the YMCA, and the rainy day gave Ken a perfect chance to be with her.

Judy had no more than settled in the car when she said, "Ken, we’ve got a problem, an all-out, major problem."

"What’s the matter?"

"Lori’s pregnant."

"I don’t see why . . . " All of a sudden, comprehension settled over him. "Oh, yes, I do. Does your mother know yet?"

"No. Lori told me on the phone just a little while ago. She hasn’t worked up the guts to tell her parents yet."

"Bob?"

"Yeah. They’re going to get married next weekend."

Ken shrugged. "Well, there goes the canoe trip. What are we going to tell your mother about going to Western?"

"I don’t know," Judy said, shaking her head sadly. "She just barely bought the idea of me living with Lori up there."

Ken crossed his ankles and drove on silently, watching the windshield wipers flop back and forth. A few miles later, Judy uncertainly broke the silence. "It won’t work this time."

"What?"

"Just to go ahead and do something and let her find out afterward. Once I’ve proved to her I can do something, she usually only gripes about it, but doesn’t make an all-out issue of it."

"How about your father?" Ken asked.

"Whatever we do, he’ll have to know what we’ve got in mind."

Ken stared silently past the windshield wipers some more. "Maybe we could just go ahead and do it," he said finally. "You remember the handicapped counselor at Hinckley? Maybe they have someone at Western who could set you up with someone like Lori."

"It’s possible," Judy conceded. "At least we’ll be able to tell mother we can look into it. That won’t shut the door entirely." She sighed and continued, "I get so tired of these continual hassles with mother. It sure would be nice to get away for a few days."

"Yeah," Ken said. "Go somewhere, just you and me."

"We couldn’t do it now," Judy said, shaking her head. "Not after what happened to Lori. They’d never believe we’re not doing something."

Whenever the rains let up for the fields to dry out a bit, activity on the Sorensen farm was hectic. The last of the corn got planted weeks behind schedule, and soybeans were later still. When the fields were dry, the tractors sometimes ran twenty hours a day, working under floodlights to catch up.

Having something to do made Chet feel a little better; but he still couldn’t work a fraction of the amount that Tom and Ken did. Judy made it out to the farm almost every day, sometimes able to see Ken for a few minutes by taking him a meal to eat in the field. There wasn’t always something she could do to help out, but she helped where she could, and there were plenty of places for her to learn a new skill. For instance, when corn had to be sprayed, Chet rode the tractor with her for a couple hours, teaching her the basics, and then sat in the pickup truck resting between mixing more spray and pumping it into the spray tank.

The brunt of the work fell on Tom and Ken. Ken spent endless hours crawling across the field on a tractor seat. While there were times that seemed special, like those when a big chore was done, most of the time it was just plain dull. Sometimes, Ken just stared out at the passing ground, trying to be as exact in his driving as he could. When he drove the big 4630, he could play Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings tapes on the tape player, but even though he didn’t spend all his time on the big John Deere, even that got dull after a while.

While Ken was sitting out there with the roar of a tractor in his ears, he thought about many things. He thought about Judy, of course; but he thought about school and what he wanted to do after it was done; he thought about the sunrises and sunsets and the birds flying overhead, and, to be sure, he thought about how he would like to get away for a few days without having school or farm work hanging over his head. The big canoe trip had been planned and planned again before it had been washed out, and he keenly missed the possibility of going.

Though it was an afternoon when they could have worked, Ken took off for a couple hours so he and Judy could go to Bob and Lori’s wedding. The wedding was a small one, due to the short notice, held at the Arvada Center United Methodist Church. Arvada Center consisted mostly of the old brick church, built in 1867, and the township hall across the road. It was a very traditional ceremony, with Lori wearing her sister’s wedding dress and her sister serving as Matron of Honor; Ken was Bob’s best man.

Bob had managed to find a small house to rent in Willow Lake, and there the couple would make their home. Lori told Judy she hoped to work on her degree again someday, but when she said that, she didn’t sound too hopeful. Ken knew that things weren’t going to be easy for them; Bob didn’t make that much on his job at the mill.

It was raining a few nights later when Ken and Judy went to the Young Adults meeting at the Arvada Center church basement. There were, as usual, about a dozen young people in attendance but this time Greg Jones and Danielle Lee were there, the first time Ken had seen either of them since the summer before. "Still going to Isle Royale?" Greg asked.

Ken told him the trip had been washed out, but then got a bright idea. "You said last summer that you might like to go there some time. How about you and me going?"

Greg thought the idea had merit. "I’ll have to talk it over with Dani," he said. "Except for the odd weekend during the school year, we only get to see each other in the summer, and I’m not sure how she’d like to see me gone for two weeks."

"Bob and I were only planning on being gone a little over a week," Ken told him.

"I got to thinking about it, last fall," Greg said. "Out of a nine-day trip between weekends, you spend at least four days traveling to and from the island. You can’t get a real good trip in the time that’s left."

"That bothered me, too," Ken admitted. "I could stand two weeks, but we’d have to squeeze it in between the second cutting and school starting."

"Sounds good," Greg agreed. "Let me talk it over with Dani later, and I’ll get back to you."

Greg called Ken back the next evening. "I’ve got a counter-offer," he said, getting to the point. "Dani would like to go, too. She had a lot of fun on that trip we took last summer. I hear you and Judith are getting real close. Any reason we couldn’t take her along for a fourth?"

"I’d have to ask," Ken said. "I’m sure she would love to go, but that’s not the problem."

Ken called Judy as soon as he had gotten off the phone with Greg. "It’s the chance to get away we’ve been waiting for," he told her. "You and Dani can share a tent. With another couple going, nobody will think anything funny is going on. You can tell your folks that it’s kinda like that church trip last summer, only longer."

"I’ll have to talk it over with Daddy," Judy promised, "but if he agrees, I think he and I can work it out with Mom. Are you going to have anything for me to do out there tomorrow?"

"I think Tom can find you something," Ken told her.

"Fine," she replied. "Why don’t you pick me up in the morning, and we can talk about it then."

I got a letter from Western yesterday," Judy said. "They said they would see about finding me a suitable roommate. So, that’s settled. Mother doesn’t much like the idea of me staying with someone I don’t know, but I think Dad and I have her talked into it. I want to get that settled and in the past a little before we take on this canoe trip."

"You do want to go, don’t you?"

"I’ve wanted to go since you brought the idea up last summer, but it just never seemed like it would work," she said. "Then, after what happened to Lori, the chances of our going any place for any length of time were nonexistent. But, having another couple along makes things different."

"Yeah, that’s just what I thought, too," Ken agreed. "People won’t think anything of it. I’ll tell Greg you’re pretty sure, but can’t be absolutely certain for a while."

"What’s on for today?"

"Combining wheat. It’s ready on the Duck Farm, and Tom thinks the ground is dry enough. You’ll drive grain shuttle, and I’m going to spread manure in the pasture, then try to clean up some of the weedy spots in the beans."

The weather let up on them in July, and slowly, they were able to get almost back on schedule; never completely, since some things, planted later, developed late. For example, they had expected to start harvesting oats before the second cutting of alfalfa was ready, but it turned out that the hay was ready early, thanks to all the rain.

Still, by early August, things were as caught up as they could get. One morning, the four young people were able to pile their camping gear and supplies into Greg’s big Oldsmobile and take off north for the tiny village of Copper Harbor at the tip of upper Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula.

They camped at a state park the night before they were to take the ferry to the island. As they had the year before, the girls stayed in one tent, and the guys stayed in the other; but after the ferry had started its six-hour trip across the blue expanse of Lake Superior, Greg and Dani had a surprise for Ken and Judy.

"Dani and I have talked it over," Greg said. "We’d like to split up by couples. You guys go your way, and we’ll go ours. That way, we can each have several days by ourselves."

"It just too good a chance to pass up," Dani added. "We won’t be able to be by ourselves for almost another year, again."

"That wasn’t the plan," Ken protested. "What are people back home going to say when they find out?"

"There’s no need for them to find out," Greg smiled. "You guys are going away to college a few days after we get back. So are we."

"I don’t like it," Ken said. "We’ve got enough hassles with Judy’s mother already to want to risk another one."

Several minutes of discussion settled nothing. Greg and Dani were adamant on getting away by themselves, and wouldn’t hear of any other idea. Finally, Judy said, "I think Ken and I had better talk this over privately."

The wind was fresh out on the bow of the boat, and an occasional drop of spray came up over the rail to splash on them. "I wonder how long ago they cooked this up," Ken mused.

"Probably before Greg called you back," Judy commented. "Too bad he didn’t tell you then."

"We wouldn’t have gone, then. Greg could have guessed that."

"It’s no secret why they want to go off by themselves, is it?" Judy smiled. "They probably figured that as much as we’ve been seeing each other, we’ve been doing what they want to do."

Ken nodded. "So then, we wouldn’t mind, either."

"Yeah," Judy admitted glumly. She turned and looked out over the bow; nothing but the emptiness of Lake Superior lay ahead of them. "We can’t turn back now."

"I’ll tell you one thing," Ken said., "If we do refuse, I’m not looking forward to two weeks with them. They’re going to spend all their time either on our cases or sneaking off into the bushes."

Judy stared at the water flowing by. "We wanted to get off by ourselves," she commented, "But, we didn’t plan anything, just because it wouldn’t look very good."

"That’s one thing," Ken said. "They’ve got the same problem. They can’t rat on us, because they’d give themselves away, too."

Judy looked up with a smile, then turned and kissed him. "Let’s do it," she said. "Just because they think we’re doing something doesn’t mean we have to do it."

"All right," Ken agreed. "Let’s just remember one thing."

"What?"

"Bob and Lori."

Judy shook her head. "That’s all I’ve thought about since Greg brought this up."

Ken tried to avoid sounding bitter as they split up their gear on the dock at Rock Harbor, at one end of Isle Royale. After they had finished and arranged for canoe rental, Greg announced that he and Dani were going to portage their canoe over into the next bay, and work their way counter-clockwise around the canoe route that surrounds the east half of the island. "Have fun," Ken said.

After they left, Ken and Judy went to have a Coke at the little store near the dock and discuss what they were going to do. "We can’t portage our canoe and follow that route," Ken said. "It’s possible, but with me doing most of the hauling, the portages will be slow, and we’d have to hurry too much."

"I can carry some of the load," Judy said stubbornly.

"I know you can," Ken said. "But we’d spend too much time carrying, and not enough time canoeing."

"Then what are we going to do?"

"Take another route," Ken said, pulling out a map of the island.

After a half-hour discussion and a consultation at the ranger station, they decided to go down the long, narrow bay of Rock Harbor, then take a series of short portages that would get them into Siskiwit Lake, near the middle of the island. After a portage out of Siskiwit Lake, and back through another string of lakes, they could arrange to have a boat pick them up.

"Sounds reasonable," Ken said. "One big portage, and a lot of little ones. I guess we can handle the big one too. We’ve got plenty of time, and we can take all we want."

The first couple of days were leisurely. In the middle of the day, the winds usually blew too hard for safe canoeing. When the wind was up, they sat on shore, confining their canoeing to the morning and evening calms.

It had seemed strange – somehow wrong – for them to sleep side by side that first night, each in their own sleeping bag in the tiny pup tent, but after meeting other people the next day, they realized that no one cared if they were married, or whatever. After that, they were as comfortable under the circumstances as they would have been if they were a brother and sister taking the trip.

It was nice to be able to get up when they felt like it, and not be driven by something that had to be done. Ken did the cooking, what cooking was required. Their meals weren’t much; either something dumped from a can and heated in a pan, or freeze-dried meals that required water to be boiled before adding the food.

On their second day, the wind kicked up about the time they were passing Daisy Farm, a campground at the head of the bay, partly closed off by the smaller islands that formed Rock Harbor. It was a convenient place to stop for the day. Since they were able to get into the campground early enough to get an Adirondack shelter near the water, they decided to spend their second night there.

"Oh, look, Ken," Judy called as they organized their gear in the shelter. "Doesn’t that say it all?"

Ken looked where she was pointing. On the wall of the shelter, someone had written in ball-point pen, "And one day we must begin our own great explorations. No longer will we find a hand to hold us, or a voice to call us back."

Ken agreed after one look. "Boy, is that the story of the last year."

"Yeah," Judy nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah."

Later that afternoon, they got out their maps and studied their route for the next two days. "The way I figure it," Ken said, "We’ll get up early tomorrow, paddle down to this Moskey Basin, and then have to portage at least two miles into this Lake Ritchie. That’s going to make for a big day."

"Right," Judy agreed. "You’re going to have to go back and forth over that trail for at least twelve miles to carry all our stuff. I wish I could be more help."

"Can’t be helped," Ken shrugged, continuing to stare at the map.

Judy studied the map a while longer. "Too bad we can’t go out in the big lake," she said finally, pointing at the map. "Look here. If we were to head out of the bay, and follow the shoreline around, we could come out where we’re supposed to be picked up, at Chippewa Harbor. We could go up through that chain of lakes to Siskiwit Lake, then work out way back to Chippewa Harbor."

"Yeah, there aren’t many portages along that route, and none of them big," Ken agreed. "But that’s taking quite a risk, heading out into the big lake."

"This is supposed to be a vacation," Judy said. "I hate to see you killing yourself on the trail tomorrow. What if we got up real, real early and got started right away? If we really hurried, we ought to make Chippewa Harbor before the wind and waves come up."

Ken looked long and hard at the map. It was a good seven or eight miles of paddling. For the first half of the trip, there were occasional bays where it might be possible to seek shelter, but on the second half, there wasn’t much but open coastline. Still, it looked like only two or three hours of hard paddling, and if the wind showed signs of picking up, they could hole up in one of the little bays and wait for evening before they had to commit themselves to the second half of the trip. "It can’t hurt to get up early and go take a look at it," he said finally. "If we don’t like it, we can turn back and start the portage."

The stars were still out, and dawn was a mere smear in the east when Ken woke up; it was his normal rising time this summer. He stepped outside to look at the sky. "Oh, Judy, come look," he called.

Judy had just pulled on her tank swimsuit while she was in her sleeping bag. Wearing only that, she used her crutches to go outside into the cool morning air. Looking into the sky, she looked up at the swirling, hanging curtains of the aurora borealis that seemed to fill the sky. "I’ve always wanted to see that," she said softly. "It’s just as lovely as I dreamed." They stood outside watching until Judy began to realize that it was the cold that was causing the goose bumps on her skin, and not just the thrill of seeing nature’s sky show; by then, the increasing sunlight was washing out the colors in the sky.

They finished getting dressed, skipped breakfast, and quickly loaded their prepacked gear in the canoe; within minutes, they were silently paddling over the dark waters of the bay. Paddling hard, with muscles strengthened by farm work and training rooms, they passed an abandoned lighthouse and out through a wide passage into Lake Superior proper. The water was smooth, and the miles slipped by under them.

Soon, the sun came up, and with it – much earlier than it had the past two days -- the wind.

It was just a gentle breeze at first, but in minutes it hardened to a strong wind, blowing almost directly in their teeth. "Judy, this isn’t going to work," Ken called.

"Right," she called back. "I was just figuring that out."

"We better turn back while we still can, before the waves pick up," Ken said. In a moment’s time, they had turned around, and were letting the wind help move them back to the safety of the bay.

In the early morning light, both Ken and Judy could see that the wind wasn’t taking them right for the bay; it was blowing them into the shore on their left. Wordlessly, they began to paddle at an angle and harder, to stay farther out in the lake, but the wind kept getting stronger, and with it, waves knocking them off of their course. It was easy to see that they’d have to pull even more to their right to make it back to the passage they had come through earlier, and it made them lean on their paddles even harder.

Still the wind and waves rose. The waves were not little now, and the more the canoeists fought them, the more the waves rocked them. Sometimes, a little water slopped over the gunwale of the canoe.

Suddenly, a little bay opened to their left. "Let’s park it, Judy," Ken yelled over the rising wind.

She yelled something back, but Ken didn’t hear the words. Quickly they turned, putting their stern to the rising waves. Now, the wind was pushing them toward the open shore past the little bay.

They almost missed the bay opening. "Pull hard," Ken yelled, even though he could already see Judy’s strong upper body pulling for all it was worth, as he leaned on his own paddle, glad of the extra strength he’d gotten from their workouts over the past year.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, surf was crashing alongside them – and then, around them. The broken waves threw the canoe about, and dumped even more water inside. Suddenly, they were in the bay, and the wind wasn’t pushing them anymore, but the waves in the bay seemed even higher than outside.

Ken could see a cove, almost closed by a tiny island. "In there," he yelled.

"Right," Judy yelled back. They pulled to the side, crossing the waves again. A steep wave, probably kicked up by the shelving bottom, dumped more water in the canoe and almost spilled them into the lake.

The cove proved to be a tiny pocket of a place, barely big enough for the canoe, but with a large, flat shelf of rock at the end. Still pulling for all they were worth, they rammed the half-filled canoe right up onto the rock gently sloping out of the water. In an instant, Ken was out in the knee-deep water, racing forward to pull Judy and the canoe up to where any wave surge in the cove couldn’t touch it.

He caught his breath for a second, then helped the shaking Judy out of her seat. Once out of the canoe, they lay on the rock, panting with relief, trying to get some strength back into their tired arms. "Made it," he panted finally.

"Wasn’t sure there for a while," Judy agreed. "Looks like we’re here for the day."

Ken nodded. "Where did that wind come from, all of a sudden like that? Could be a weather change. We may be here longer than today."

"I wonder if we have any dry clothes?" Judy asked conversationally. "I’ll bet a lot of stuff got wet."

After they had their energy back, Ken began to unload the canoe, while Judy unstrapped her crutches from the thwart and explored their little kingdom. Just past the top of the rock, she found a tiny open area, just big enough for their tent. She went back, told Ken the news, and then helped sort through their duffel.

As she had feared, much of their baggage was indeed wet. "Could be worse," Ken said after he had set the packs and sacks out on the rock and dumped the water out of the canoe. "Looks like the sun is going to be out though. If it clouds over, it won’t be soon. Out of the wind like this, this rock ought to be fairly warm. Looks like a good place to hang out the laundry."

"There’s going to be a lot to hang out," Judy said. Virtually all her spare clothing was wet, and the clothes she had on weren’t much better. Ken’s clothes proved to be much the same. Worse, their sleeping bags were pretty well soaked. Their food was in better shape; most of it was in cans or in foil or plastic pouches, so there was only the occasional disaster. "Well, we won’t starve, anyway," she commented.

"I don’t know about you," Ken said, "But I’m in the mood for something warm."

"Me, too."

Ken set up the little camp stove, and soon had a pot of water boiling. Mixing in the contents of a plastic package gave them hot cocoa, which tasted even better than Judy could have ever dreamed.

"Well, we wanted to be alone sometime," Judy said, feeling less depressed.

"This is alone, all right," Ken agreed.

"It’s such a pretty little place," she said. "You know, I could almost spend our whole vacation right here."

Ken nodded. "Well, we’re going to be here till the wind goes down and we get dried out, anyway. I hope that doesn’t take up the rest of our vacation, but there’s no way we’re going to get out of here today."

Once they had finished their cocoa, Ken set to work stringing and filling a clothesline, while Judy set up the tent on the little patch of ground she had found.

In an hour or so, Ken’s farm-tuned weather prediction began to come true. Though they could see the wind bending the trees overhead, and could see waves crashing out in the bay, inside the little cove it was almost calm. The sun began to warm up the rock; where Judy had felt cold not long before, now she mostly felt the clamminess of her clothes. Clearly, some sunbathing was in order.

The dampness of the tank swimsuit she had on was uncomfortable against her skin, yet she cringed against the thought of taking it off and putting on her totally wet bikini. An idea crossed her mind – one of those dreams she had once had, and had shelved as being impossible. "Hick," she asked, amazed at her brashness, "Do you think there’s anyone else around here?"

"I doubt if there’s anyone else for miles, Crip."

Judy turned the idea over in her mind. It wasn’t really the right thing to do, but then, being out here alone with Ken wasn’t either. It couldn’t hurt to try her idea out on him, first. "Would you get any bad ideas if I were to do something I always wanted to do?"

"What’s that?"

Judy bit her lip. She wasn’t sure she could really say it. "Sunbathe nude," she finally gushed.

Ken looked out across the bay. Things were going to get stickier and stickier, but . . . "Not if you don’t get any bad ideas if I do the same thing," he said. "Fair is fair."

"Fine with me," she replied, starting to strip off the wet swimsuit.

"Can I borrow some of your suntan lotion?" Ken asked a moment later. Judy looked at him and stifled a laugh. Ken had been working without his shirt whenever the weather had been warm enough, so he was nicely tanned – but below his belt line, he was as white as a fish’s belly.

Within minutes, they lay silently out on the sun-soaked rock, like reptiles soaking up heat. All of a sudden, Judy burst out laughing. "What’s so funny?" a half-asleep Ken asked.

"I just realized it," she said. "Nobody – I mean, nobody – would believe we were lying out here stark naked and not doing anything. Can you imagine what my mother would say?"

"Well, she sure wouldn’t believe it was your idea," Ken replied.

Judy laughed. "Well, I trust you, anyway." She turned over, to look at Ken. "You know, it’s bothered me, sometimes," she smiled.

"What?"

"That we’ve been going together for more than a year, and you’ve never made a pass at me."

Ken had been lying on his back; now, he turned to look at Judy. "You’re saying you want me to?" he smiled.

"No, not really," she said, looking away. What had been a joke was getting a little more serious. She thought for a moment, then continued, "But yes, in a way, it makes me wonder why you never have. I guess I’d feel better, in a way, if you had. I mean, I know we’re darn good friends, and I appreciate that, but I’ve often wondered if my legs have turned you off from being any more than that."

"It’s not that, Judy," Ken replied, sitting up. "In the past year, I’ve come to think an awful lot of you, and I’ve often thought I’d like to make that pass you mentioned. But I’ve been afraid that if I did, you’d take it wrong, and I’d lose you."

"You’re not scared off by me being a cripple?" she asked plaintively.

"Once I was," Ken admitted. "Then, I learned differently. So your legs don’t work. So what? There are other things that balance that off. There aren’t many things that you can’t do that can’t be lived around. Right at the moment, I’m just a little bit thankful that your legs don’t work."

She bristled at that. "What do you mean?"

"I’m alive, that’s what," Ken replied seriously. "If that had been Bob in the front this morning, heavier and weaker than you are, I could be out there at the bottom of that bay. But with your upper body strength, you were like an outboard motor up there. It made the difference, I think. We’re alive."

"Do you mean that?" she asked, wide eyed. It had been a frightening experience, but she hadn’t realized it had been quite that serious.

"Of course I mean it," Ken said. "You couldn’t see those waves washing into the canoe like I could. If things had worked out otherwise, we might have made it. Or maybe not. All I can say is that I’m glad I had you in the bow, and that you’re as strong as you are."

Judy shook her head. "Well, I can see that, I guess. But it still doesn’t answer my question."

Ken rolled back over and looked the naked girl in the eye – and elsewhere, making sure that she knew it. The last few minutes was the first time he had seen all of elsewhere, and it looked pretty good. She could almost feel the difference in his gaze as he said, "Judy, I’ve always known that your crutches make you think that you’re not appealing. Now, I’d just like to say that if you hadn’t been on crutches, a doll like you would never have been interested in a farm boy like me. You’ve got lips I love to kiss, and a chest that’s out of this world, and there’s something that we’ve never done that I’d very much like to do with you. Does that count as a pass?"

"It’s a good start," she smiled.

"But," he said, "I don’t ever want you to think that I’m taking advantage of you because you’re handicapped. So, I’m perfectly willing to wait until after we’re married, if you are."

Judy sat up with a start. Her eyes were wide, and her smile filled her face. "Did I hear you say what I thought I just heard you say?"

"I’ll say it again," Ken said. "I want you so bad it hurts, but I don’t think it would be right for us to do what Greg and Dani are doing till we’re married. I’m willing to wait if you are."

She collapsed against Ken, her head on his chest, tears rolling down his bare skin. "I never thought I’d hear that from anyone," she said. "Not even from you. If you really mean it, I guess I can wait, if you can."

"I mean it," he murmured, feeling her hands caress his body, "Even if it won’t be easy to wait."

"There’s a part of me that doesn’t want to wait, either," she admitted, "But, I guess we better."

"Does that answer your question?"

He could feel her head lift from his chest, and her lips pull close to his. "Just hold me tight for now," she said before their lips met.